Discussion board "answered" workflow
We currently are using SharePoint 2003 in our organization and I have not found the discussion boards there to be very useful, both in navigation and functionality.
I've been looking at SharePoint 2007 and the discussion boards look much cleaner. However, I would like two features, which I suspect I can address via workflow, but I would appreciate it someone would be able to confim:
1) The ability for the thread creator to mark a thread as "answered". For example, if User A posts a thread asking a question "What setting do I need to change?" and four people post replies, I would like User A or a moderator to be able to mark one of those 4 responses as the "answer". Then the next time the thread is viewed by anyone, the "answer" would be the first post they see on top of the thread, or just below the first post. Ideally, the thread would be marked as answered (using an icon) so that users could tell which threads have answers before drilling down.
2) When a thread is marked as answered, the user who posted the answer should be given points and the total points each user has accumulated should be kept track of (I'm thinking through the use of a SharePoint list).
3) Moderators could have the ability to turn the thread into a KB article. The moderator would add his comments, clean up the thread, and once done, the KB article would be posted in a "Knowledgebase" discussion. Moderator should be able to choose which subset the KB article should be posted in (i.e. .NET, SharePoint, etc.)
Are these feasible using just the built-in discussion boards and workflow? Would I have to create a custom workflow in VS 2005 or are these doable using the out of the box designer (Content Approval workflow?)
I'd prefer to use SharePoint for our discussion needs as opposed to a separate tool, but only if at least Item 1, and preferably Item 2 can be satisfied by SharePoint.
Thanks in advance for any help.
